South-bound

In less than 24 hours, Butch and the Lambert Racing #27 FASTRAK Crate Late Model team will head south to Tennessee and Virginia to compete in Night #2 and Night #3 of the 2009 FASTRAK Grand Nationals.

On Saturday, October 3rd, Mercer Raceway Park hosted Night #1 of the Grand Nationals for the Northeast Region. After initially starting 17th, then being relegated to 22nd after being caught up in a first lap crash, Butch managed to work his way up to battle David Scott for the 5th place position in the closing laps of the event. He had to settle for a 6th place finish, which put the team in an interesting dilemma since we had drawn a line in the sand at needing to finish 5th or better to move on to Nights #2 & #3 in the South. After much debate, the team has decided to go ahead and make the 8+ hour tow to Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, TN and Wythe Raceway in Rural Retreat, VA this week.

Night #2 will find us on the fringe of the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee and the team's first ever visit to Volunteer Speedway on Wednesday, October 21st for practice and qualifying. On Thursday, Night #2 will end with heats, b-mains, a 50-lap feature event and non-qualifiers races. When the action ends Thursday night, the team will head North on 81 to Rural Retreat, VA for the 2009 Grand Nationals Finale (Night #3) at Wythe Raceway. The action on Friday, October 23rd will include practice and qualifying, with the heats, b's and features the next night, when the 2009 Champion will be crowned. Butch is going into the events in a three-way tie for 6th place (24th overall). Teams from all of the US are expected and the Northeast region will be well represented with 15 or so teams expected to make the trip.

You can listen to all the action LIVE on www.racecastlive.com all four days! Also, don't forget that live race results and information will available practically instantaneously, straight from the track. Please take a minute to sign up, just click on http://twitter.com/LambertRacing27. You can sign up to receive “tweets” through e-mail or text message (standard text rates may apply).

Stay tuned to this blog for nightly updates and results!